Operation: Midnight Tango (15 page)

Pounding at the door sent Zack scrambling off the bed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Emily sitting, clutching her shirt to her breasts, her eyes wide and frightened. Then Zack’s training kicked in. He darted for the disguise he’d used the night before. Standing in front of the mirror, he went to work.

A second knock sounded, harder and more impatient. “This is the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Department. Open the door, we’re checking all the rooms.”

Though his heart was pounding, Zack’s hands were steady as he used the adhesive to secure the tiny mustache to his upper lip. The scar came next. No time to finesse. His gaze met Emily’s in the mirror and he whispered, “Get dressed. Pack what you can. Hide in the shower, close the curtain, take your bag with you.”

She was already off the bed and heading toward the bathroom. He watched the light in the bathroom
go out. Saw the door close halfway. Heard the shower curtain hiss as she yanked it closed.

Praying the police didn’t force their way in and search the room, Zack crossed to the door, slipped into his antiquarian persona and opened the door.

Chapter Twelve

Emily crouched in the bathtub, expecting that at any moment the bathroom door would burst open, the shower curtain yanked aside and strong hands would reach in to haul her off to jail for aiding and abetting an escaped convict.

Fighting panic, she closed her eyes and prayed Zack was a good enough actor to convince the police he was a traveling salesman and that he was alone in the room.

A full minute passed before she calmed down enough to listen to what was going on. The conversation was muffled because the bathroom door was partially closed. But the voices were loud enough for her to make out most of what was being said.

“You’re here alone?” asked an authoritative male voice.

“I’m quite alone. In fact, I was going to be checking out in a few minutes. Is everything all right?”

It took Emily a moment to recognize Zack’s voice. The Irish brogue had been replaced by a Boston inflection.

“There’s an escaped convict in the vicinity,” the male voice said. “We’re canvassing the area. Checking with the ranchers and motel owners and alerting the park rangers.”

“Is this person dangerous?” Zack asked.

“Armed and extremely dangerous. He’s traveling with a woman. She’s a corrections officer we believe is helping him. If you see either of them, use your cell phone to call 911.”

“Of course. I hope you catch them.”

“So do we.”

The door slammed. Emily nearly fainted with relief. She was in the process of stepping out of the shower when Zack walked in. Had the situation not been so potentially threatening, she might have laughed at the sight of him. He looked like a meek bookworm, with his small mustache, spectacles, pinched expression and hunched shoulders. She didn’t know when he’d done it, but he’d even added colored contact lenses. The transformation was truly amazing.

“That was damn close,” he said, the old Zack returning.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“We need transportation.” He glanced at the alarm clock next to the bed. “I can’t miss that meeting I set up with my contact from MIDNIGHT.”

“How do we get a vehicle?”

“Since we can’t buy one, we’re going to have to borrow one.”

She didn’t like the way he’d used the word
bor row.
It sounded too much like
steal
and, with the police hot on their trail, the fastest way to get caught.

“This place is crawling with cops,” she said. “How on earth are we going to steal a car?”

“There’s a service station down the road. I discovered it when I left to use the phone earlier this morning. The service station is closed on Sunday, but they have several cars sitting in the lot, waiting to be serviced.”

“Terrific. We get a car that’s kaput.”

He grinned. “We get a car no one will miss until tomorrow.”

Emily was about to nix the idea when he leaned forward and kissed her. The combination of adrenaline and lust was heady, and she kissed him back. She knew it was risky, reacting to him like this when they were a hairbreadth away from getting caught—or worse. But it was as if he’d put her under some kind of spell. A spell that was going to at the very least ruin her career. At the very worst get her killed.

His eyes clashed with hers when he pulled back. “Hold that thought,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the rear lot in five minutes.”

ZACK CHOSE the four-wheel-drive Jeep with tires the size of boulders and keys in the ignition, and five minutes later he and Emily were on the main road heading north toward the rendezvous point he’d set up with his contact from MIDNIGHT.

The last thing Zack had wanted to do was take Emily with him. There was a good possibility they
were walking into an ambush. He’d considered dropping her off at the local sheriff’s office, but he knew she would be no safer in the hands of law enforcement. The Lockdown people had fabricated a story and put out a press release; the police now believed she was an accomplice to murder. There was no safe haven to stash her, so he’d had no choice but to bring her along. He only hoped his decision wouldn’t cost her her life.

Sitting quietly in the passenger seat, Emily was distant, staring out the window as if the snowy landscape beyond held the answers she so desperately needed. Zack wished he could say something to reassure her, but he was fresh out of solutions.

It was the shadows in her eyes that bothered him most.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked when the silence grew oppressive.

“I don’t see how we’re going to win this.” She gave him a long, assessing look. “The police think you’re a killer. They think I’m your accomplice.”

“We’ll get through this.” He reached over and set his hand over hers. “I want you to know, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make sure your name is cleared.”

Lowering her head, she sighed. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Zack.”

“You’re a decent human being who’s risking her life to do the right thing.”

She raised her head, her gaze searching his. “Or maybe I’m here because…” Another sigh shuddered
out of her. “Because every time you look at me, every time you touch me, I forget about doing the right thing.” She grabbed the breast pocket of her coat where the Lockdown logo was silk-screened into the fabric. “This logo, this uniform, used to mean something to me. It used to mean everything to me. I’ve thrown it all away—”

“Emily, we’re in a high-adrenaline situation. We’ve been under an incredible amount of stress for over thirty-six hours—”

“This isn’t about adrenaline or stress or even the amount of time we’ve spent together.”

“No, but those things can complicate an already complicated situation. Especially when the chemistry between two people is right.”

“Or maybe history is repeating itself.”

“What are you talking about?”

She surprised him by laughing, but it was a bitter sound. A sound he didn’t like coming from her. “Maybe I really am like my father.”

He didn’t know anything about her father. But Zack saw clearly the rise of emotion in her face. He saw it in the way her hands had begun to shake. He heard it in the tremor in her voice. And he knew that whatever she was about to tell him was deeply painful for her.

“What does this have to do with your father?” he asked.

“You mean you don’t know about the infamous Adam Monroe?”

Zack waited, sensing she needed to talk, know
ing he was going to have to push to get her to open up. He glanced in the rearview mirror, watching for flashing lights or a car following too closely or for too long. Snowflakes had begun to fall from the gray sky, but he didn’t think it was going to storm.

He waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he said softly, “Talk to me, Emily. Tell me what happened to your father.”

“He was a corrections officer for the state of Idaho,” she began. “He worked his way up through the ranks all the way to lieutenant. He was good at what he did. He was professional and respected. When I was fifteen, he was transferred to the Balpost Correctional Facility for women. There had been some problems at the prison and they sent my father there to implement some new policies and procedures and straighten things out.” She looked down at her hands and sighed. “He was there for only six months when the problems began. I was too young to fully understand what was going on. But I heard the phone calls. I heard arguments between him and my mother. I saw the articles in the local paper, the reports on the local news. I heard the whispers behind my back when I was at school.”

“What happened?”

“My father…became involved with a female inmate.”

Shock and compassion rippled through him. And finally he understood why she’d been so very reluctant to believe him, to trust him. “I’m sorry.”

“I was too young to understand all the implica
tions. Both of my parents tried to shield me from most of it. But I knew he’d done something…reprehensible.”

“Something like that is tough for a fifteen-year-old girl to grasp.”

“It was a terrible time for my family,” she said. “There was a lot of arguing. Phone calls in the middle of the night. Visits from the police. My mother was furious. She said he shamed us. He shamed his profession.”

“How did it happen? I mean, were there mitigating circumstances? A question of this female inmate’s guilt? What?”

“I don’t know. He never told us.”

“You mean he didn’t defend himself? Wasn’t there some kind of formal hearing or charges filed against him? Did he lose his job?”

“He didn’t live long enough to tell us what had happened.”

“I’m sorry.” Zack looked away from the road to stare at her, his mind reeling, his heart hurting for the fifteen-year-old girl she’d been. “How did it happen?”

“He committed suicide.”

“Aw, man. Emily…”

“It was a long time ago.” She lifted one shoulder, let it fall. “It was tough. But I worked through it. I’m okay now.”

He grimaced, knowing she was not. “What happened to the female inmate?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who was she?”

“Her name was Shanna James. I’ve seen photographs, and she was very beautiful and very young. Just ten years older than I was at the time.” She smiled, but it was humorless, brittle. “She’d been in prison for two years when they met. She had been convicted of murdering her husband.”

“Nice.”

“From what I was able to piece together, she targeted my father. Used every enticement in the book, including her body.” She closed her eyes, as if the pain of what she was about to say was too much to bear. “He sacrificed everything to be with her. His career. His family. His very life. I hate to say it, but I think he was actually in love with her.”

Zack didn’t know what to say, so he let her talk.

“My parents had been having problems. Once my father’s indiscretion was made public, my mother filed for divorce. He moved out. Two weeks later he was dead.”

“That must have been incredibly painful for you.”

“All I wanted was for my parents to get back together. I hated the woman who took that away from me. I hated him for being weak and letting it happen.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, then let her hands fall to her lap. “And then he was dead and I had no one left to be angry with.”

“This is why you’ve been so resistant to believing me.”

“It’s why I’ve been cautious.”

He looked at her, wishing he wasn’t driving so
he could reach out and touch her and somehow make her believe he was telling the truth. “Your father was human, Emily. Sometimes human beings make mistakes.”

“I won’t make the same mistakes he did.”

Her words rang hollowly inside the cab of the Jeep, and Zack felt them like a punch to the solar plexus. They were only a few minutes from the rendezvous point he’d set up at a scenic overlook, but all he could think about was Emily and what she’d been through, what he was putting her through now.

I won’t make the same mistakes he did.

The sign for the scenic overlook flashed by. Zack slowed the Jeep, spotted the exit just ahead. Next to him Emily had turned her attention back to the window, shutting him out as effectively as the glass shut out the cold. He knew it was stupid at a time when he needed to be concentrating on his upcoming meeting, but he wanted her trust so badly he could taste it.

Zack drove past the exit.

“You just missed it,” Emily said.

“I’m going to park a few hundred yards down.”

“Are you anticipating problems?”

“That appears to be the theme of this mission.” Spotting a gravel shoulder, Zack slowed the Jeep and pulled over. Unfastening his safety belt, he turned to Emily. “Get in the driver’s seat,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“I’m going to leave the keys in the ignition,” he said. “If anything happens, I want you to drive to the
next county and go directly to the sheriff’s office. Tell them everything.”

“Zack, in case you’ve missed a few details in the last day or so, I’m a fugitive just like you.”

“The mole will kill you on sight, no questions asked. So will Underwood and his goons at Lockdown, Inc. The police are your only recourse if we get ambushed.”

“The police could be part of this.”

“That’s why I’m telling you to drive to the next county. Not every cop in this state is on the take. Now, damn it, slide over to the driver’s seat.”

She climbed over the console. When she’d settled behind the wheel, he reached for the handle and stepped out of the Jeep.

“Zack?”

His gaze collided with hers, and he felt the impact like a speeding truck. She looked beautiful and frightened, and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to lean into the Jeep and crush his mouth to hers.

“Be careful,” she said.

Giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, he slammed the door and started toward the overlook a hundred yards away.

EMILY SAT BEHIND THE WHEEL, staring at the keys dangling from the ignition. If she wanted to leave, all she had to do was reach down, start the engine and she’d be home free.